Learning Modern Calligraphy ....
In Singapore, anything new spreads like wildfire be it a new food place, a fashion statement, a craft or hobby. Here it's the small city culture where practically everyone is permanently attached to their phones or tablets resulting in news, trends being a quick click away, the latest thing to explore becomes a trendy revolution with people suddenly wanting to learn.
Modern Calligraphy is the *new* art many are taking up, filling seats at the workshops offered.
I've always loved fonts and design, anything with stylised writing built into the designs we see in posters, rubbers stamps, in scrapbook papers or products. Having seen beautiful work by calligraphy artists, on Pinterest and online sites, I was totally fired up to learn !
There are 2 independent artists conducting Modern Calligraphy workshops in Singapore :
** Pauline Ibarra of Happy Hands Project ** and ** Dee of SoulDeelight **.
As a craft educator, I strongly recommend hands on workshops to get started because it really gives you so much in terms of actual demonstration of the craft, numerous tips and ideas as well as the physical presence of the instructor to correct mistakes.
These are my thoughts : I teach scrapbooking and often have crafters who come for workshops with no foundation, who've wasted so much time (and money) struggling to scrap with the products they've bought, not knowing why their projects feel lop-sided with too much or not enough. The foundation course teaches how to use products and tools correctly, the importance of colour, balance and proportion through design basics, how to begin a layout, optimising supplies without wastage and the current trends in design and products. With a foundation workshop, a crafter will be less overwhelmed by the supplies they bought or see in the store.
Join workshops if you are beginning crafting, they are important to helping you start right !
I badly wanted to take a workshop in Modern Calligraphy, but over the months have found it difficult fitting into any of the schedules, it was frustrating !! My own workshops or events at Made With Love are often on Saturdays and clashed with the calligraphy classes ...... or there were family plans on the weekends.
All this led me to try figuring out a way to learn on my own. Online sites are the best bets for affordable craft workshops, are very popular, a boon for people like me who cannot attend physical workshops especially those by US crafters I follow. As I've mentioned, my first choice would be an actual workshop, but being unable to go to one, well, online it is ! Another factor : I am an experienced crafter used to paints, inks, with an already developed eye for design, and a healthy understanding that one gets *good* ONLY with lots of practice. If you are new at a craft, be patient and keep at it, make the effort to dedicate time to practice.
There are quite a few offering online Modern Calligraphy and I settled for Molly Jaques at Skill Share. While I feel the content is sufficient, not having a physical teacher to interact with may be unnerving for those unused to online classes, obviously feedback is not immediate which may be a problem for someone totally new at any art-type hobby. For me it was more important to see Molly Jaques's style of writing, and find out if her style suited me. She has an angular slightly italicised style ...... while I tend to prefer *fat* rounded writing.
Currently I am using the Speedball Pen Holder with the nibs Niko G and Leonardt No. 41 (similar to the Gillot 300). Make sure you buy the nibs which have the flap underneath for the ink reservoir. The inks I have are Higgins (they have different ranges, permanent ones are better) and Dr PH Martin. Gouache is the one thing I will try next !
Pen holders and nibs can be bought from these two places:
Art Friend at Brash Basah Complex
Straits Art Co, 420 North Bridge Rd #01-27
How fast one progresses depends on your experience in crafting and natural ability, and how much time spent on practicing. Calligraphy in Singapore is an affordable art, it doesn't cost very much to start, doesn't take up alot of space, the supplies are easy to carry around if you need to practice outside of your home.
Hopefully this post is useful to those intending to try Modern Calligraphy ..... it's fun, therapeutic and very pretty !
